Issue date DECEMBER 31 1992

advertisement

DILIP AWASTHI

December 25, 2000

ISSUE DATE: December 25, 2000

UPDATED: December 25, 2000 00:00 IST

The scenes will return, like deranged ghosts, to haunt those who were at the graveside to witness the burial of a secular dream. The screams of exultation with every blow of the pickaxe, each thrust of a rod, each dome that came crashing down. If there were no implements, the frenzied hordes would have used their hands to the same effect, so powerful was the poison that coursed through their veins in those few hours of madness. There were others. The maniacal look in the eyes of the kar sewaks as they triumphantly held aloft Babar's bricks or attacked journalists and taunted the bovine policemen. The provocative exhortations over the loudspeakers that rose above the roar of the crowds. And the twin plumes that snaked to the skies: the dust from the demolished structure, and smoke from nearby Muslim houses torched in the orgasmic fever. Religion was their opium and it returned Ayodhya to the medieval ages. But quite a few warning signs had been there earlier, as the initial trickle of kar sewaks swelled over the past three days into close to two lakh. Many were docile sadhus, pot-bellied shopkeepers from Delhi, rustics from Punjab, excited students from Pune. There were, however, others, their number running into hundreds, who came with one fanatical obsession-the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

Get real-time alerts and all the news on your phone with the all-new India Today app. Download from